Hao-Ping (Hank) Lee, Carnegie Mellon University
AI creates and exacerbates privacy risks, yet product teams often lack the expertise to spot and mitigate issues early—leaving privacy experts to translate principles and correct late-stage choices. What if teams could draft a solid privacy "first draft" before involving experts? We present Privy, a human-AI teaming tool powered by generative AI (GenAI) that enhances non-privacy-expert practitioners' privacy awareness during AI product ideation. Privy helps teams surface likely privacy risks and propose concrete mitigations, producing high-quality intake artifacts so experts can focus on product-specific, high-impact decisions. We grounded Privy's design in a formative study with 11 practitioners and evaluated it with 24 additional practitioners; 13 independent privacy experts rated the resulting privacy assessments high quality, with relevant risks and appropriate mitigations. Practitioners found Privy useful and usable, reporting improved awareness, motivation, and ability in doing privacy work. We conclude with design roles for integrating GenAI into privacy workflows.
Hao-Ping (Hank) Lee is a fourth-year PhD student at the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, advised by Professors Sauvik Das and Jodi Forlizzi. His research sits at the intersection of usable privacy security, human-computer interaction, and human-centered AI. He studies and builds tools that enable practitioners to identify, reason about, and mitigate AI-entailed privacy risks during the development of consumer AI products. His research has received Best Paper and Distinguished Paper Awards at top HCI and privacy and security conferences, including CHI and USENIX. He has also been recognized with the CMU CyLab Presidential Fellowship.
author = {Hao-Ping (Hank) Lee},
title = {Envisioning and Mitigating Privacy Risks for {Consumer-Facing} {AI} Product Concepts through {Human-AI} Teaming},
year = {2026},
address = {Santa Clara, CA},
publisher = {USENIX Association},
month = jun
}